AMD Phenom 9850 with Asus M3N78 Pro or M3A78 Pro? 2x2gig DDR2 800 or DDR2 1066?

[Tony]

The wife's pc croaked.. so I get to give mine to her and build myself
a new one.

Picked out the cpu
AMD Phenom 9850 BLACK EDITION 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core
Processor Model HD985ZXAGHBOX - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103249


Got two mobos on my short list to pair with the above cpu

ASUS M3N78 PRO AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8300 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard -
Retail
Support AMD Phenom 9850 & Future 140W TDP Processors
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131320


ASUS M3A78 Pro AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131325

Right now I'm leaning towards the M3N78 mainly because of the onboard
firewire.. Anything I'm not seeing that makes that a bad choice?

I don't plan on using the onboard vid.,


Both boards state:
"DDR2 1066
*Due to AMD CPU limitation, DDR2 1066 is supported by AM2+ CPU for one
DIMM per channel only. "

I would be fine with two sticks of 2gig ddr2 1066, right? wither board
would accept this correct?

It's doubtful one would see any real-world-app major performance
changes between the 800 and 1066 sticks... would that be a true
statement?


Thanks for advice/suggestions !

Tony!

 

[Paul]

The wife's pc croaked.. so I get to give mine to her and build myself
a new one.

Picked out the cpu
AMD Phenom 9850 BLACK EDITION 2.5GHz Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core
Processor Model HD985ZXAGHBOX - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103249


Got two mobos on my short list to pair with the above cpu

ASUS M3N78 PRO AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8300 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard -
Retail
Support AMD Phenom 9850 & Future 140W TDP Processors
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131320


ASUS M3A78 Pro AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131325

Right now I'm leaning towards the M3N78 mainly because of the onboard
firewire.. Anything I'm not seeing that makes that a bad choice?

I don't plan on using the onboard vid.,


Both boards state:
"DDR2 1066
*Due to AMD CPU limitation, DDR2 1066 is supported by AM2+ CPU for one
DIMM per channel only. "

I would be fine with two sticks of 2gig ddr2 1066, right? wither board
would accept this correct?

It's doubtful one would see any real-world-app major performance
changes between the 800 and 1066 sticks... would that be a true
statement?


Thanks for advice/suggestions !

Tony!

The two boards you mention, are on the "140W list". That would be
my primary concern. The M3N78 Pro has a grand total of two reviews
that I can find, so it has just arrived. The M3A78 Pro has
zero customer reviews (checked both Newegg and vip.asus.com
forums).

The M3N78 Pro has a FW322 for Firewire, which I thought was by Agere
(maybe LSI bought Agere or something).

Each board has its irritations. The M3A78 Pro has an ATI Southbridge,
which can mean some surprises when installing disks. The M3N78 Pro chose
not to put the VGA connector in the I/O area, instead putting it on a
PCI slot cover, on the end of a ribbon cable. That could affect video
quality at higher resolutions. The M3N78 Pro is also missing a PS/2
mouse connector, while the M3A78 Pro has one (a consideration for
KVM owners/users).

To help make your choice, I would download the PDF manual. There, you
can see what the BIOS is like, and what they recommend for memory
setup. Now that the Asus web site uses Akamai for the actual downloaded
files, there is no longer a wait. My link runs at full rate during the
actual download. One of the manuals took about 30 seconds (my service
cap isn't that high).

Paul

 

[Ed29229]

Tony,

Am currently building a PC with similar specs:


AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition

Asus M3N78 Pro motherboard

Zerotherm Butterfly BTF-90 CPU cooler

Corsair DDR2 1066 Dominator Ram (2 x 2gb)

XFX 8600gt video card

2 x WD SATAII 7200rpm 320gb hard drives

Lite-on DVD-Rom and DVD-RW drives

Thermaltake PurePower 500w power supply

Thermaltake Armor MX+ mid-tower case.


The folks who I originally ordered the Ram from sent me the wrong Ram,
so I ordered it from another supplier. Should finish the build next
weekend after the new Ram comes in. Will let you know how it turns
out.
I like the M3N78 Pro because of the hybrid Nvidia graphics. I haven't
seen a lot of good reviews for boards built with AMD's 780g hybrid
system. Best wishes on your build.

Ed H.
South Carolina, USA

 

[Tony]

Thanks Paul & Ed for the responds.. Looking forward to hearing your
experience with the M3N78 and 1066 ram

-T-

 

[Miles Bader]

I like the M3N78 Pro because of the hybrid Nvidia graphics. I haven't
seen a lot of good reviews for boards built with AMD's 780g hybrid
system.

Odd... every review I've seen of the 780G has been very positive -- the
basic view seems to be "finally a decent integrated video solution".

-Miles

 

[Ed29229]

At the time when I was shopping for a motherboard there didn't seem to
be an overwhelming positive response to the boards I was looking at
with the 780G chipset. After recently looking at some of the reviews,
I see that things have certainly changed and there are also some new
offerings in that category. I am glad it has changed.

Thanks,

Ed H
South Carolina, USA

 

[Ed29229]

Odd... every review I've seen of the 780G has been very positive -- the
basic view seems to be "finally a decent integrated video solution".

-Miles

I have checked the market and things have changed since I reviewed
motherboards. There are new offerings and more of an overwhelming
positive response. This is a good thing.



I am a Christian man though and a degreed professional. There was no
need for your public insult.

Thanks,

Ed H
South Carolina, USA

 

[Miles Bader]

I am a Christian man though and a degreed professional. There was no
need for your public insult.

Random signature, not aimed at you particularly.

-Miles

 

[Ed29229]

I am a Christian man though and a degreed professional.  There was no
need for your public insult.

Random signature, not aimed at you particularly.

-Miles

Miles,

Thanks for the explanation, no offense taken then.

Have a good day,

Ed H

 

[pongagt]

I just built a system with a M3A78 Pro and 5000+ BE and Xigmatek 92mm
heatsink/fan. I got the board from zipzoomfly for $110. I couldn't
find any reviews but i thought i would take a chance on a 780 chipset
that is supposed to support 140W cpus. I didn't have any problems
installing my scsi boot drive, sata, and pata drive, and sata and pata
burners. It's running fine although i haven't overclocked it yet. The
only problems were my 24" long floppy cable couldn't reach the
connector as it is on the top of my full tower. Also my hard drives
were physically interfering with my OCZ Reaper memory. I scrapped the
floppy and extended the screw slots on my hard drive rack so the
drives would go into the rack a little more and all is well. I would
have liked to have firewire but i can always add a card.

 

[Prime]

I just bought a AMD Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition processor, and am
looking for a compatible motherboard to go with it.

I am looking at the "ASUS M3N78 PRO AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8300 HDMI
ATX AMD Motherboard" on newegg, and it has the caveat, "*Due to AMD
CPU limitation, DDR2 1066 is supported by AM2+ CPU for one DIMM per
channel only."
-- What does this mean?

I had previously purchased OCZ High Performance 2x2GB DDR2 1066 RAM,
will this get me the 4GB RAM capability I'm looking for?


Thanks for your time!

Patrick

 

[Paul]

I just bought a AMD Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition processor, and am
looking for a compatible motherboard to go with it.

I am looking at the "ASUS M3N78 PRO AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8300 HDMI
ATX AMD Motherboard" on newegg, and it has the caveat, "*Due to AMD
CPU limitation, DDR2 1066 is supported by AM2+ CPU for one DIMM per
channel only."
-- What does this mean?

I had previously purchased OCZ High Performance 2x2GB DDR2 1066 RAM,
will this get me the 4GB RAM capability I'm looking for?


Thanks for your time!

Patrick

Try PDF page 76 and Table 21 in this document. The DDR2-1066 entry
at the bottom of the page, only shows one stick per channel, and
command per clock is still running in 2T mode (relaxed). So it would
appear that the processor is not guaranteed to be able to run two sticks
per channel at that speed. If you have a 2x2GB config, that shouldn't be
a problem, as you'll have only one stick per channel.

"BIOS and Kernel Developer’s Guide (BKDG) For AMD Family 10h Processors"

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/31116.PDF

If you later wanted to run four sticks, dropping the memory clock down
so things run at a lower clock rate, should work OK. Just don't expect
four DDR2-1066 sticks to be guaranteed to work at DDR2-1066.

Paul